Geodesic, a mobile communication services, based in Mumbai, has launched Spokn to enter the voice communications space. The internet or IP telephony service will be a bridge between public telephone networks and VoIP (voice over internet protocol) services. Spokn enables users to make long distance calls at cheaper rates from mobile phones, smart phones and regular landline phones apart from computers. The subscriber can acquire a local number for $1 a month.
The company has launched it in 40 countries and a subscriber can make calls at local rates from these countries.
Speaking to Telecom Yatra about the marketing of the service, Kiran Kulkarni, chief executive officer, Geodesic, said,” As of now we are planning to market through the online medium and social media. We also will leverage our existing user base.”
The company plans to have a million plus subscriber base in 6-8 months down the line in addition to the current base.
The primary target audience of the service would primarily be individuals with family and friends outside India. The company plans to gradually focus the enterprise space with simplified solutions.
Commenting on the speed of the service Aashar Farhan, chief technology officer, Geodesic, said, “Spokn has a speed of 16 Kbps. Therefore it can run on GPRS and other mobile internet platforms too.” The service is operational on Windows and MAC operating systems.
Geodesic launches IP telephony service, aims for a million users
Idea to launch operations in Assam, North East in December
Idea Cellular has announced that it is going to launch its services in Assam and the North East by December 2009. The service provider has recently started operations in Jammu and Kashmir, West Bengal and Kolkata.
Rajat Mukarji, vice president, corporate affairs, Idea Cellular, made the announcement at Telecoms World India 2009 in New Delhi. He also said that Idea Cellular will have a pan India presence by December 2009 after the commencement of its operations in Assam and the North East.
Idea currently has 53 million subscribers in the country and is present in 21 circles. Other operators who have a pan India presence are Vodafone, Bharti Airtel, Reliance and Tata Teleservices.
In October, the company had sought additional wireless spectrum for two circles from the Department of Telecommunications to support its increasing subscriber base.
BlackBerry app store now in India
Research In Motion (RIM) has announced that BlackBerry App World, the official store for BlackBerry smartphone applications, is now available for users in India. The store offers range of free personal and business applications for users, including ones built for the Indian market such as Hungama’s MyPlay, CNBC TV18’s Moneycontrol, Mundu Radio and Arrowmatics.
BlackBerry App World can be accessed over both Wi-Fi and cellular networks, and users can download BlackBerry App World to their BlackBerry smartphones from www.blackberry.com/appworld or mobile.blackberry.com.
The key features of BlackBerry App World include search, reviews, application storage and archiving, and update notifications.
Frenny Bawa, vice-president, India, Research In Motion, says in a company statement, “The BlackBerry platform provides a truly unparalleled mobile experience for millions of people and we are thrilled to enhance that experience with BlackBerry App World. Consumers in India can now easily discover and download a wide variety of applications, including a range of made for India apps, directly from their BlackBerry smartphone.”
BlackBerry App World is available for BlackBerry smartphones running BlackBerry’s operating system version 4.2 or higher and including a trackball, touch sensitive trackpad or touchscreen. To access BlackBerry App World, users need an active BlackBerry data service plan with Internet and those with a limited data plan might need to pay data charges.
BSNL enters ‘pay per second’ war
A week after Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea announced their entry into the pay per second brigade, the state owned operator Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) has also followed suit.
Under the offering, BSNL subscribers will be charged at one paisa per second for voice calls without having to pay any daily rental. The company also says on its website that there is no restriction on total usage and subscribers will have to pay less than Rs 4 per month for tariff voucher.
BSNL has also launched a promotional 3G tariffs plan for its prepaid customers, under which the consumers will be charged at a rate of 30 paisa per minute for voice calls, both local and STD, as well as video calls. The data charges are one paisa or less per 10 KB download.
Apart from this, the company is also offering 50 video calls and 25 MB data usage free of cost to its subscribers.
These announcements come in the wake of TRAI mulling making per second billing mandatory for all operators. The trend, however, caught steam as newcomer Tata Docomo executed a widespread marketing campaign introducing per second tariffs.
Tata Indicom offers money transfer service for the unbanked
Tata Indicom has partnered with Corporation Bank and Paymate, a wireless transactions enabler, to launch Green Money Transfer, which will allow transfer of money one person to the other using mobile phones.
Green Money Transfer is mainly targeted at people who don’t have bank accounts. The transfer service is facilitated by PayMate’s technology, Corporation Bank’s banking system and Tata’s PCO and True Value Shop (TVS) network.
Lloyd Mathias, chief marketing officer, Tata Teleservices Limited, told Telecom Yatra in a telephonic interview, “We are going to launch this service in Kerala and Mumbai in the first stage and will later hit all circles across India. There is immense potential in this sector as the number of unbanked people in the country is very huge.”
To use this service, customers need to register themselves at any Green Tata PCO, TVS or Corporation Bank outlet, after which they receive an mPIN that will be required to authorise the transaction. The sender can then hand over the cash at the selected outlet, which triggers an IVR (interactive voice response) call to him.
The sender then authorises the transaction by entering his mPIN and gets a transaction code on his mobile. The sender conveys the transaction code to the recipient, who goes to the nearest Tata PCO or TVS outlet and shares the code. The outlet then triggers an IVR call to the receiver, who enters his mPIN to authorise the transfer. After the verification, the outlet hands over the cash to the recipient.
At a time, a person can remit up to Rs 5000 using Green Money Transfer, which works across all types of handsets. The registration is free of cost and the service will be available to both urban and rural users.
Ajay Adiseshann, managing director and founder, PayMate said in a company statement, “With over Rs 600 billion (Rs 60,000 crore) being remitted across the country, this presents a great opportunity for all of us to tap into and we are confident that the service will redefine the way financial services are approached.”
Nokia ties up with ITC e-Choupals for content
Nokia and ITC Ltd have entered into a partnership to provide personalised agricultural services to people in rural areas who use Nokia Life Tools. Life Tools is a range of content updates designed by Nokia especially for the rural segment, based on their location and preferences. Besides agriculture, it also includes education and entertainment.
As per a memorandum of understanding, Nokia and ITC will offer content available at ITC e-Choupals to Nokia Life Tools’ customers. They will provide commodity prices, relevant news, alerts on schemes, other information related to the agriculture sector.
The content would initially be provided in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Rajasthan, and more states will be added over time. The content will be based on information that farmers obtain from from 6500 ITC e-Choupal centres spread across 40,000 villages in 10 states.
Nokia Life Tools services use a graphic user interface with tables that can display information simultaneously in two languages. Nokia has collaborated with Idea Cellular for this service, which is compatible with handset models Nokia 2323 classic, Nokia 2330 classic and Nokia 2700 classic.
Bharti Airtel drops MMS rate
After having seen the intense price war amongst telcos over call and SMS rates, we can now see them triggering another war by cutting tariffs for other services such as multimedia Messaging (MMS). The first to kick off MMS rate cut is Bharti Airtel.
The service provider has announced a major reduction in MMS charges for its prepaid as well as postpaid customers in Delhi and NCR. It has cut tariffs from Rs 5 to Re 1 per MMS for limited period.
” With this initiative, our customers can now send photos, pictures, Images and visual greetings to others only at Re 1 per MMS, “says Shashi Arora, chief executive officer, mobile services for Delhi and NCR, Bharti Airtel, in a statement.
Currently, service providers such as Vodafone and Idea are charging subscribers Rs 3 per MMS along with additional data usage charges.
Reliance Webstore to distribute Coolpad handsets
Reliance Webstore Limited, the wholly owned subsidiary of Reliance Communications and the retail venture of Reliance ADA Group, has entered into handset distribution in addition to its current handset retailing business through Reliance World and Reliance Mobile stores.
Reliance World stores will act as distribution hubs, with each store registering its own channel partners and handset retailers and developing its own distribution network. The company has already signed up 1200 handset retailers and multi brand outlets (MBOs) in 100 towns.
The company has entered into an agreement with the Indian joint venture of Hong-Kong based China Wireless, Coolpad Communications. Reliance Webstore signed a strategic distribution agreement with Coolpad Communications gaining exclusive rights to market and distribute Coolpad’s dual mode smartphones in India.
Sarup Chowdhary, director and chief executive officer, Reliance Webstore Limited said in a company statement, “In addition to our exclusive distribution agreement with Coolpad Communications, we have also identified other new business opportunities to leverage this model for a larger participation in the Indian telecom retail sector.”
Coolpad also plans to establish a R&D unit in India. According to the official communiqué, Coolpad is planning to invest Rs 400 crore in India over the next three to four years. It will also establish a R&D unit in Shenzhen, China. The special R&D unit will work with Reliance Webstore teams across India to seek customer feedback and develop differentiated products for the Indian market. The Coolpad smartphones are expected to contribute over 30% of the overall handset sales at Reliance World and Reliance Mobile Stores, according to the statement.
Over the next three years, Reliance Webstore is looking at a distribution network of over 10,000 MBOs and retailers spread across 700 Indian towns.
The telecom retail business currently contributes over 50 per cent to Reliance Webstore’s annual revenues, claims the company.
Loop Mobile reintroduces pay per second plan
Loop Mobile (formerly BPL Mobile) has announced the relaunch of its pay per second plan that will charge consumers one paisa per second for all local and STD calls. Existing subscribers can recharge with Rs 48 to avail this plan. It is also available for all new prepaid subscribers.
Sandip Basu, chief executive officer, Loop Mobile, says in a statement, “Though Loop Mobile had pioneered the concept in 2004 and launched it across circles then, we find the market is more receptive to this offer due to increase in both access and acceptability. We are revisiting the service now and are confident that our customers will widely accept it.”
Loop Mobile, then BPL Mobile, had introduced the concept of per second billing across Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Maharashtra, Goa and Pondicherry in September 2004.
The operator was charging prepaid subscribers a standard tariff of 3 paise per second for local calls and post-paid subscribers a flat rate of 2 paise per second for all local calls.
Telephone subscriber base in India crosses 500 million
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has released figures on the telecom subscriber base as in September 2009. The government had set a target of 500 million telephone connections by 2010. There are 509 million telephone subscribers, up three per cent from August. The teledensity in India has reached 43.5 per cent.
In the mobile segment, the subscriber base is almost 457 million. The teledensity in this segment stands at 40 per cent. Among the operators, Tata Teleservices showed the maximum growth in subscribers at 26 per cent. The operator has two brands – Tata Indicom in CDMA and Tata Docomo in GSM. This is followed by Bharti Airtel with 16 per cent additions.
MTS, a newcomer in the space, has shown an increase of 13 per cent in the subscriber base from the previous month, and has 1.9 million subscribers.
The wireline subscriber base stood at 37 million. BSNL and MTNL lost about 60,000 subscribers in their fixed line services.
The Broadband subscriber base has reached 7.22 million in September-09, showing a growth of 3.2 per cent.